AuthorTopic: VOLUME SHADOWS (Read 6377 times)

I think that volume shadows should be made workable and reliable ... At the moment, volume shadows mess up ... The textures go all destorted. I believe this error should have been sorted out ages ago ... Its been going on since Version 6 :S

my model set is huge. Ray traced shadows take ages. Volume shadows would decrease time ... But they dont work! Image quality can sometimes be terrible.

In fact, i think Volume Shadows should be a main priority ...

for quick renders etc

Logged

its like quicksand, once the 3d has a hold of ya, theres no gettin out

Sometimes rendering takes a while, that's how it goes... What does 'ages' mean in your case? And what resolution are you trying to render?

If it takes 3-5 hours to render a 800x600 image, it's normal for big scenes... You don't even need to worry if it takes 10 hours or more; it is long, but it's not exceptional... Just start rendering your image in the evening and when you get up next morning, it will be done...

sheesh, it's no wonder you're having problems! until recently, i was using a p4 1.6ghz with 512mb ram, and that wasn't brilliant... i can imagine how things would go wrong, with computer specs like yours, combined with the complexity of what you're trying to do. i suspect the way around it would be to get a computer upgrade!

my aforementioned p4 machine was also running win98 - i said "don't say you've got ME" because apparently it's worse than 98 despite being newer, same as Vista is worse than xp.

suggestions for a new machine... are you're building it yourself? my new beastie was built for me as a birthday present, so i can't remember all the exact details, but it's got a 64-bit intel quad, with win xp pro x64 edition. if i were you, i'd get a quad-core, even though anim8or doesn't take advantage of them properly yet, as it'd be good for other apps, eg. video editing, and i'd say look around and try to find a copy of xp professional. it may not look as pretty as vista, but it's a more stable platform, and you'll get a lot less grief over compatability issues. you can still find xp copies if you look in the right places, or so i'm told. dunno whether to say you want 32-bit or 64-bit - again, anim8or doesn't come in a 64-bit version, but the standard 32-bit programs still run fine on xp x64, and some higher-end stuff (like vid editing) will benefit from the 64-bit architecture. i've got 2gb ram, and two 250gb hdds. the big hard disks are great, as i can render uncompressed videos without worrying about running out of disk space i'd definitely say to get at least the same size hdds as me. with the complexity of the anim8or work you're doing, i might say to get 4gb ram. apparently x64 will allow support for some stupid amount of ram (16 thousand terabytes or something daft like that), but 2gb is fine for me, for now.

that'll cost you, but if you want a really good machine, that's the sort of specs i'd say you should be looking at.

No worries Steve. I've never really bothered with volume shadows, so you can't miss what you've never had, huh! Dude, there's no rush to fix minor issues like this. We are all having a ball playing with Anim8or, and I for one am in some considerable awe that this package has been written by just one bloke, in his spare time. I have no doubt that the day will come when Anim8or will be sold alongside Lightwave, 3D Studio Max and the like, and when that happens you can employ a team of testers to fix little bugs like this, and get on with Anim8or V2.0, with physics engine, motion blur, particle engines, animated materials...... *enters happy little daydream of glorious things to come*